Nehemiah 4:1-9
You may have used
this saying when you were a kid to rebuff some bully who had just called you a
name. Or maybe you said it to your own children when they faced a bully.
Nehemiah and the Jews while working on the wall faced a bully who had the
ability to both call them names and break their bones.
"When Sanballat heard that we were
rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the
Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said,
“What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they
offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to
life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?”
Sanballat was the
governor of Samaria! His verbal attacks weren’t just idol threats. His comments
attacked the very foundation of the Jews’ security: the physical security that
the wall represented; the strength of their religion; the pressure of getting
the job done; the task at hand appeared insurmountable. In many ways, we face
the same type of spiritual attacks on us today.
In light of these
attacks, Nehemiah prayed, and as a result,”the
people worked with all their heart”. He developed a strategy to combat Sanballat
and the Samaritans – “They posted a guard
day and night to meet this threat”. Nehemiah wasn’t willing to give up
because he knew that God was faithful and that he had been called to complete the
task.
Just as Nehemiah and
the Jews were on a journey, so are we. And like Nehemiah, we are in a spiritual
battle. But God hasn’t sent us into this battle unprepared. He has given us His
Holy Spirit; He has given us His written word; He has given us His Living Word
- His Son Jesus. He has given us a mission to complete.
So when life throws
“sticks and stones at you”, when it feels like words sting you to the core of
your being, follow Nehemiah’s lead – pray and keep believing in a God who loves
you and will never leave you.
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